Alice Cotton and Pete Stephenson are serving up a well-loved treat every Saturday at the Sackville Farmers’ Market, coffee!
Cotton and Stephenson are partners in life as well as business, and started brewing professionally just a few months ago.
Their repurposed Belliveau Orchard truck, named “Beatrice,” can be found next to Pi By Crow on Main Street.
Nearly everything in the truck is upcycled, thrifted, and repaired with love.
They are proud to share their love of espresso under the name “Deus Ex Macina.”
The full conversation with Cotton and Stephenson is available here:
MC: I just figured that I should check in with you both about your new business. Which is, I’m hoping, pronounced Deus Ex Macina [ma-KEE-nah]? Or is it? Do you actually say macina [ma-SHE-nah]? How do you say it?
AC: I will tell you the pronunciation since I came up with the name. It’s Deus Ex Macina [ma-CHEE-na]. So the “CI” is pronounced like a “CH.” It’s a play on words. The theatrical expression is “deus ex macina” [ma-KEY-nah], and the words [ma-KEY-nah] and [ma-CHEE-nah] are from the same Greek roots, which kind of means machine, and “macina” means grinding stone. It’s one of the oldest machines around. So it was a funny play on words. It’s God is coming out of our grinder to save the day, instead of that of some machine from the sky as it would have been in a Greek play.
MC: Okay, I love that. I’m glad that I asked you. When did your business actually officially begin, just so I have the correct timeline?
PS: About eight weeks ago.
AC: Eight weeks ago. We did seven Saturdays in a garage, which used to be Bagtown Brewery. Where they started, we started there as well. We’ve done one Saturday at the Farmers’ Market in our van.
MC: Can you tell me a bit how your business came to be. As in, how long were you planning? Is it a relatively new idea, etc.?
PS: Well, it was kind of an off-the-cuff decision. I have been a lover of coffee for quite some time now. In order to have good coffee on a low budget, I’ve been repairing coffee machines for years. So when a couple of commercial coffee machines came available through Kijiji, I jumped on it.
AC: By a coffee machine, we should be precise, we mean espresso makers.
PS: Yeah, it’s a commercial espresso machine. So a couple of those came on Kijiji, we threw some wheeling and dealing, and then a lot of test shots pulled out in a tent trailer in the backyard. We got that up and running. Even before that, at the beginning of the pandemic, we were serving coffee to our friend, Chef Crow from Pi By Crow. We would do little coffee runs in the morning and run down and, you know, feed her addiction. She is working alone in her shop, isolated. She wasn’t able to shut down during the pandemic, and we thought well at all costs, we have to help keep her going and keep her spirits up. By necessity, everything has been closed up. So it was a way to keep our connection going and keep people’s spirits up. We kind of got a kick out of it. Then Rose, Chef Crowe, basically put big ideas in our head. She fed the hubris.
MC: So it sounds like perhaps it all happened over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, is that a correct thing to say?
PS: Yeah, it’s a pandemic baby. I think anybody who’s a coffee lover has always dreamed of opening their own coffee shop. I think even you were a barista in one of your careers. So everybody dreams that “oh, I could do that.” But you know, there’s only the crazy few that would say, “Oh, I can do that during a pandemic while I have another job.
AC: And, maybe out of a vehicle!
PS: Initially we were going to do it out of a trailer. But then my construction anxiety and everything got in the way. Finding a truck seemed like a good idea, and one popped right up. Thanks Facebook Messenger for sending that one to me, or I think-
AC: Marketplace.
PS: Yeah, once again, the idea was that during a pandemic, there’s a possibility just to serve takeout coffee. The market seemed like a safe, short-term venue for us. So that we would not be in a situation where we were paying rent or dealing with that sort of thing. And also, one day a week seemed like a doable endeavor for two people,
AC: It seemed like there was a void at the market as well, it seemed that getting a good cup of espresso-based coffee at the market was really lacking. It was just not possible to get that at the market, people would have to go elsewhere to do that. So it seemed like an obvious kind of void to fill. We feel that we’re going into this very tentatively, and we can drop it if it just doesn’t seem to be a good idea at any moment because we haven’t really committed an awful lot into it yet.
MC: Okay.
PS: A lot of sweat, but not a lot of money, really?
MC: Gotcha. Not a lot of investment money. How has it been starting and operating a business in the middle of COVID-19? A lot of businesses had to pivot like a pre-existing model, but you started right in the thick of it. Has that influenced how you’ve developed it at all?
PS: Definitely. So it was never conceived as anything except a take-out model. So it was not designed to [be] “we’re gonna have to come up with an ambience or an atmosphere of a sit down place.” I mean, unfortunately. I think most people would like to open up a place that attracts a certain clientele with a certain style or whatever.
AC: But at the same time, it’s kind of a relief not to have to come up with all of that, right? We are just takeout coffee, we’re not providing anything else. That’s the safest thing that we can provide.
PS: The other thing was, we’re working out of a garage. So in terms of the actual space, we had the great incubation space from the Sackville Commons. It was also a way that a local enterprise could, even during the pandemic, could offer, some of this startup assistance that they normally do before this whole “pivot-fest” happened. So, you know, they were, we were able to, you know, take advantage of that,
AC: They’ve been very helpful, and the Sackville Farmers’ Market has been really helpful in giving us tips and helping us out. The health inspector that we dealt with was a very good person, very nice to work with. It really has not been as difficult as I think we thought it might be.
PS: Everything is done with baby steps, you know, we’re not we’re not you know, you know, by just being a takeout, the overhead is small, the, the, you know, there’s only so much stuff we can fit in our truck. You only need a certain amount of material to provide this…is it a good or service? It’s somewhere in between.
AC: Yeah, not a lot of waste either. Right?
MC: Do you have any little success stories that you’ve had so far? I know it’s quite new, but I’m curious to know them.
PS: Well, a success would be that after eight weeks. Actually, even after four weeks, we have regulars. There are people that are like looking forward to our coffee on Saturday morning, which kind of blows our minds,
AC: Even in the rain they’ve been coming. Even with a baby strapped to their chest and bags of groceries in their hands. They come for their cup of coffee. It’s just amazing. It’s been great to meet people, and to meet some people who know a lot about coffee and other people who just love it. Yep, those have been successes.
PS: We’ve been exposed to a couple of Sackville’s notorious coffee know-it-alls. We haven’t been dressed down publicly or anything, and it’s just kind of fun. It’s kind of a weird thing to do. But it’s a nice complement to Pi by Crow’s sticky buns on Saturday morning, or the Esser’s crazy pastries and stuff that they do, or I don’t know, isn’t there even a new guy that sells some kind of muffins? So we’re happy to be there. It’s like a supporting actor to all these great carbs that are out there.
MC: I love that. I think that’s a good tagline for coffee businesses everywhere. I’m going to steal that. I’ve already mentioned I was a former barista at the Black Duck Cafe for context, listeners. So I’m going to ask you a couple of very specific questions about coffee, if only for my own curiosity. Whose beans do you use?
PS: Java Blend.
MC: Oh yeah, that’s what the Duck used to use.
PS: See, when I first started dating Alice. She was like, “Oh, Black Duck has the best beans.” She was raving about these Black Duck beans. Then when I went there, I was like, “Hey, wait a second. It says, in the back they’re using Java Blend beans, which are the same ones that I use. So it was like, you know-
AC: A match made in heaven!
MC: So do you buy them wholesale, out of curiosity? Can you do that in such a small business?
AC: Yes, we can. They are the easiest people in the world to work with. Java blend… I can’t say enough good about them. They’re very easy to work with.
PS: I don’t know if you’ve ever visited their Halifax shop. Dealing with them behind the scenes is just as good as the ones on the front.
AC: They like what they’re doing, they’re very, very nice to work with. The only sad part for me is that I have the punch card, I constantly wear out my punch card because I was just buying beans. I have like an entire full punch card. But you can’t use it on wholesale.
MC: Oh no!
AC: We’ll have to give it to somebody.
PS: They’re very easy to deal with, and they have great product. We’re happy to use their beans in our machine. They allow us also to sell their beans, too.
AC: A few people come to us and buy beans from us.
MC: One of those people is probably going to be me, now that I found that out.
AC: Okay!
MC: So either one or both of you clearly has barista experience. Is it one or both?
PS: Neither.
MC: Neither! So who makes your coffee?
PS: I’m a home barista. I basically learned how to make coffee on a little home machine, and then I traded one on Halifax “bunz” for a bicycle and I got a really nice machine for trading that.
AC: It was a home machine, though.
PS: A really nice home machine. They needed repairs, and I fixed it. Then what we found out was that we needed better grinders. We got a really nice grinder…
AC: For home!
MC: For home, here at the Sackville Salvation Army. Whoever dropped off the grinder, the Rancilio Rocky kind of just blew our coffee game wide open. If you’re a barista, you know that it’s probably more the grinder that’s going to make a good cup of coffee than the actual machine.
AC: I mean, he’s done a lot of research, we’ll put it that way. He’s been making good coffee at home with home machines for years. He knew he had to concentrate on it some more and figure out what to do with a commercial machine. He’s done research, you’ve asked questions of people, you’ve asked some other baristas that we’ve met over the past few years. How to foam milk, right? So you’ve been asking people and improving your skills there.
PS: We have pretty much everything we need in that van, which seemed like a miracle.
AC: Some of it because we put out the question, “we’re looking for a table,” and our friend had three of these tables from Mount Allison that had been old science tables. He made oars out of a couple of them and he decided to get rid of this one. It was ideal, too big for our van, but it was perfect in the garage.
PS: But it came complete with graffiti about how a bad organic chemistry is, and a couple anatomic drawings right on the top. We did not put that into the van-
AC: No, no we didn’t.
PS: People can keep their anatomical drawings to their own school binders.
MC: This is a random small question, but do you carry things like dairy alternatives for milk? Are you all dairy?
AC: Oh, boy, great question! We’re the only place in town, as far as we know, that makes oat milk lattes. We have a couple of people who have moved here from Montreal. They came to see us pretty soon after we opened, maybe they didn’t see us the first time we were open. They said “Do you have oat milk?” because we had soy milk all along, we’ve always had soy. We said “Oh, we haven’t experimented with that.” So we got a whole bunch of brands experimented with [them] and had it available the next week. The next week they came and they were really pleased and other people noticed it on the menu and we’ve had some other people try it as well.
Grab a cup of espresso every Saturday morning at the Sackville Farmers’ Market, 45 Main Street.
